I’ve finally recovered from a long 24 hours of blogging for the 2008 blogathon. I’ve now had a much needed sleep, hot shower, lazy Sunday morning, and a nice lunch. I wanted to thank all of my friends for supporting me in this effort and generously donating money to the Lochmaddy foundation. The unofficial total raised was just shy of $1500 - the donation page is still live and any amount you can spare is greatly appreciated. That’s an amazing amount and will go a really long way to helping the small community in western Mali.

Over the 24 hours, I along with several colleagues at work and a special guest blog post from Tod Maffin managed to write 49 blog posts. You can read all of the posts at the Invoke blog and I’ve linked to the favorite ones that I wrote below.

Where Do You Get Your Inspiration

Tail of the Fail Whale and Open Distribution

Social Media and Self Importance: Are You Signal or Noise?

Tails of Being an Office Dog: Small Dog Edition - Really I like this one because it has a super cute pic of Kaiya

Research Before You Brand: The Story of 2 Chefs 1 Table

I am currently sitting on the floor of my friend Tod Maffin’s house, with 4 1/2 hours to go in the 24 hour blogathon.  I’m on the phone with my sister grabbing her credit card details to donate to the blogathon, when Tod snaps a pic of me and tweets ‘ @jennmae is on my living room floor calling people and shaking them down for Blogathon money! She’s filling their donation in over the phone’.

I thought the pic was really cute and perfectly reflects how I’m feeling at this point.

In exactly 7 hours from now I will begin participating in the first annual Vancouver blogathon for charity.  For 24, starting at 10 pm tonight and ending 10 pm tomorrow night, I will be writing and posting a blog post every 30 minutes.  That works out to 49 posts in total.  I’m participating in the blogathon through work and will be posting on the Invoke blog.

I’ve already written a bunch of the posts and have had colleagues at work chip in by writing some for me as well.  There are some great posts that will be posted and a few that are funny.  They are definitely worth heading over and checking out.

I am doing all of this to help raise money for a small village in West Mali.  Through the Lochmaddy Foundation, all donations will be directed to N’Gouraba. Families in N’Gouraba are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of their children through a special agricultural project. Your donation will empower and enable them to realize increased crops, more family income with new opportunities and a brighter future.

So far, we have raised $1,346.  There is still time to get donations in and any little bit you can help with will go along way in a village like N’Gouraba.  Visit Invoke’s page on Plan Canada to make your donation.

I did it.  I survived bootcamp!! When bootcamp first started, I didn’t think that that was going to happen.  I felt every muscle in my body ache for the first two weeks - the problem with waking up in the morning turned from an issue of getting my eyes to open, to being able to move my stiff aching body enough to roll out of bed.

As the weeks progressed, it slowly became easier as my body adjusted to the new grueling workout routine.  Don’t get me wrong, I could still feel the intense work out the next day - and even that evening if it was a particularly hard workout - it just wasn’t as hard as those first couple of weeks.

After the 2 week mark, I started to notice subtle differences in how my body was looking as well and more importantly, how I was feeling.  So the results are in and I am extatic.  I couldn’t be happier at all.

The first number was my result on the first day of class and the second one is on the last day at class.

- Push ups in one minute (girly ones): 22    /   39

- Sit ups in one minute: 30    /    40  (my form is also much better than the first time)

- Plank hold (you balance on your toes and arms and see how long you can hold it - I did the girly ones though where you balance on your knees) - 1:35 *the longest of all the girls!!    3:00 min

- Squat hold (where you lean against a wall and pretend that you’re sitting on a chair) - 1:07   /    1:23

- 1 km run - 5:40   /   4:36 * Yes I knocked over a full minute of my time!!

Then there were the measurements:

- Right Bicep: 10.5 in  /  11 in

- Chest: 38.5 in    /    35.5 in

- Abdomen (they measured across your belly button and not your narrowest part - kinda didn’t love that bit): 32 in    /    30.5 in

- Hips (again not where I’d think to take it - we did it across the largest part of your butt): 40 in   /   38.5 in

- Right thigh: 23 in    /    22 in

- Calf: 13.5 in    /    13.25

I was so impressed with the results that I have signed up for another month of bootcamp.  We started last night and I am going to try and make it 4 nights a week this time instead of 3 (it would be 5, but I have beach volleyball on Thursdays).  I’ve even almost quit smoking.  I’ve not quite quit completely yet, but I’m down to 1/2 - 2 smokes per day, which is a huge improvement over what it was.

At the end of this session, I will update you with my stats again.  I highly doubt that the results will be as good as the first time, as I don’t really have any weight to lose, rather I need to tone.  Where I do expect to see the results is in the fitness test.   If I can improve that much in just 4 weeks, imagine what I’ll be able to do in 8!

This week has been a particularly busy one.  It is my last week at bootcamp - tomorrow we are redoing our measurements and fitness test and  I’ll post the results and the overall inches lost.  I’ve already noticed a huge difference in my stamina and overall muscle tone.  So much so, that I’ve already signed up for another month.  It starts on Monday - so no break for me, but well worth it.

At work, we like to do off’s.  We started with a soup off, then progressed to a slow cooker off - which we aptly named Rock Out with Your Crock Out.  That one was so good, that we did it twice - the mix of slow cookers and guitar hero is amazingly fun.  To celebrate the final arrival of summer in our fair little city, we’ve decided to do a BBQ off.  As I type, I am parboiling some ribs and am about to make a BBQ sauce to marinate them in over night.

Yesterday, I signed Invoke up for the 2008 24 hour blogathon for charity. Basically, we will be posting a blog post every 30 minutes for 24 hours. This year, the blogathon was arranged by Vancouver’s very own Miss604 and the last time I checked, there were 12 bloggers signed up.  I know Vancouver can do a lot better than this and I encourage any bloggers out there to participate.  I will be writing in Invoke’s blog for the event if you would like to check it out during the event.  The Invoke team with begin posting at 10 pm July 26, and we will upload our last post at 10 pm July 27.

We’ve chosen a charity that helps villages in Mali.  I will have more information on the charity and an actual page where you can donate tomorrow.  It’s going to a great cause, so any bit that you can help with would be much appreciated.

**Update:

Invoke has set a fund raising goal of $1000 for the blogathon.  If you would like to support our efforts - which we would greatly appreciate - you can make a donation to the cause here (the page will be going live later today).  Invoke has chosen a charity that is very close to Invoke’s heart - The Lochmaddy Foundation.  Invoke is connected to this charity through Dario Meli and David Tedman who sit on the board. Through the Lochmaddy Foundation, all donations will be directed to a community in Mali, West Africa. Families in N’Gouraba are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of their children through a special agricultural project. Your donation will empower and enable them to realize increased crops, more family income with new opportunities and a brighter future.

We are collecting donations through Plan Canada who are our partner on the ground there.  I would like to thank them and specifically Heather for all of their hard work in helping Invoke bring this all together.